Bellamy continues to hold my hand on the other side of me, while I look around. It’s a manor style mansion, and makes me think of mint juleps in the summer and debutantes. The walls are covered in beautiful wallpaper, and the windows bring in just enough light so as to not hurt my eyes.
That is, it would if the sun was shining. Now, night is taking over the city, and the lamps offer a warm glow.
“You’ve been creating quite the murderous stir,” a man with a deep tan and kind brown eyes says as he stands. His salt and pepper hair is slicked back, his white shirt rolled up his forearms and perfectly pressed.
My mind picks up odd things when I’m anxious, and I notice the pleats in his gray pants as well as one, lone tattoo on his right inner arm. I can’t see what it says from here, but I tell myself to get my curiosity under control.
“That’s my fault,” Shiloh says with a shrug. “I hyperfixated too close to the sun, and the streets ran red. Oops?”
“God, you’re such an ass,” the alpha chuckles deeply. “Hello, Winter and Bellamy, right?”
At our nods, he adds, “I’m Lyle, and my bark is worse than my bite. I promise.”
“His bites are also reserved for us, so it’s fine,” Easton says, making me blush as I realize what he means.
“Wait for me,” an alpha calls, hurrying in with a tray of food.
“Does this mean we’re going to be here a while, Silas?” Ansel groans. “Do we really deserve to be fed and spanked?”
“So dramatic,” Silas chuckles. “We may as well be civilized and have something in case someone gets hungry. Please, sit.”
We all find places around the den to sit, and Shiloh stays nearby with his hand on my knee.
“I’m not really worried about the people who are disappearing around Savannah,” Lyle confesses. “If it’ll cleanse the filth from my city, so be it. My concern is for the missing person report that Easton found.”
“While Lyle works as a lawyer, I actually work with the police in the main headquarters,” Easton smirks. “I handle all of the paperwork that’s processed within the city, which gives me insider knowledge. I bury the things that need to be too.”
“So far, Easton was able to make sure the missing person report isn’t being followed up on since you’re both adults,” Lyle adds. “Essentially, he buried it. Winter, why would your aunt be doing this now?”
“Money,” I reply at the same time Bell says, “Madam Clara.”
“You think they’re working together?” Abbott asks.
No one really touches the spread Silas laid out, and I’d feel bad, but my stomach is currently in knots. This must be part of the Southern Hospitality I’ve heard about.
“My aunt sold Bell and I to Madam Clara,” I say, thinking about Abbott’s question. “Madam Clara is very possessive, and Bell and I made her a lot of money. While she never tagged us with trackers, she always seems to find us.”
“A group of people shut down the floating club we were sold to, and were going to help us get our lives back on track,” Bell explains. “Once we were in the SUV, that should have been it. Unfortunately, Madam Clara managed to find us, change out our driver, and then we were stuck. There was no way to escape, not without one of us getting hurt.”
Both of us disassociate as we talk about the past. It’s the only way to get through it honestly, especially when I think about how close we were to freedom.
Things would have been very different though, and we may not have met Pack Tremaine. It’s a sobering thought.
“She’s invested in reselling you,” Silas says, playing with one of the rings on his fingers as he thinks. “This sounds like she has a grudge.”
It’s difficult not to believe that since she branded us.
“You could say that,” I sigh. “She sold us again a couple of months ago, with the agreement that should something happen, we would be returned to her. I don’t think the management was advised of that, based on our treatment.”
The skin around Lyle’s eyes pinches but he nods.
“Does Madam Clara think you’d reach out to your aunt?” he asks.
“There is no fucking way we would under normal conditions. However, if we were two omegas alone in the city, I can see where the expectation that we would reach out to the lesser evil would lie,” I say.
“I suppose I can see that,” Lyle agrees. “Thank god that’s not the situation. If Madam Clara is behind this, it might be smart to play into this.”
“Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Ansel says with a chuckle. “Are you seriously saying that you approve of us contacting her aunt so we can put her through our own version of Hell?”
